Old Print Ad: Billy Murray At The City Opera House

No, I am not familiar with a talkie called "Caddyshack."

This 1921 print ad touts a concert performance by Irish tenor Billy Murray and seven other recording artists to promote the Victor Talking Machine Company. Murray (1877-1954) was one of the most famous entertainers in the country during the early decades of the century, known for his comical style borne of vaudeville and medicine shows. You really couldn’t go anywhere without hearing “In My Merry Oldsmobile,” and why would you want to? Murray, a Philadelphia native raised in Denver, made his first wax cylinders in San Francisco in 1897. In that less-enlightened era, he recorded songs in ethnic dialects and minstrel-type performances. Murray was a huge fan of the New York Highlanders (later to be renamed the Yankees) and often played right field for them in exhibition games. (So, he really has more in common with Billy Crystal than Bill Murray, despite the name.) The introduction of the microphone to recording studios in 1925 favored subtler stylists who could croon, which pretty much ended Murray’s time in the limelight. He died in 1954 on Jones Beach, Long Island.

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